Category Archives: Hypnosis and Phobias

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If there’s anything I know to have helped enrich my clients lives, it’s two basic needs: water and sleep. Water cleans out your system (another post for another day – I’m always surprised to see how many clients that come in for weight loss don’t drink enough water) and sleep literally is the best medicine both physically and mentally. Don’t wait to treat yourself until after you’ve crashed and burned. What is the point of stitching up a wound when you’ve already been drained of all your blood?

CNN reported back in February that the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) called sleep deprivation a “public health epidemic.”

The article can be found here: http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/18/health/great-sleep-recession/.

The article also suggests how many hours of sleep we should be getting every night:

Newborns (0 to 3 months) — 14 to 17 hours per day

Infants (4 to 11 months) — 12 to 15 hours per day

Toddlers (1 to 2 years old) — 11 to 14 hours per day

Preschoolers (3 to 5 years old) — 11 to 14 hours per day

School age (6 to 13 years old) — 9 to 11 hours per day

Teens (14 to 17 years old) — 8 to 10 hours per day

Younger adults (18 to 25 years old) — 7 to 9 hours per day

Adults (26 to 64 years old) — 7 to 9 hours per day

Older adults (65 and older) — 7 to 8 hours per day

Without your suggest hours of sleep, you are at a risk in a number of ways. Your performance level drops, your ability to concentrate drops and your mood and motives are all swung out of place. Drowsy driving is found to be just as risky as drunk driving. Our brains are wonderful pieces of creation but without sleep, the way we think, the way we see details, the way we retain memories, process information and make decisions ultimately dwindle. To carry such debilitations over a few missed hours of sleep a night is not worth the bigger, long term mistakes headed your way (i.e. an automobile accident, consistently arriving to work late, missing fine details (if you work in finances… this is major), missing a flight, turning small arguments into exploded fights, and the like). We’ve all experienced this at some point so can we agree that emotions are greatly heightened by lack of sleep causing anger, frustration and sadness to get blown out of proportion?

It’s a lot easier said than done because my clients come in for a gamut of issues that prevent them from getting good rest at night (money issues, relationship downfalls, raising troubled kids, losing job opportunities, insomnia, depression, addictions, PTSD, anxiety, sexual issues, fears, night terrors, you name it). Come see me and I will help you get the rest you need. Trust me, things do not seem as bad as they did after a night of quality sleep.

Unhappy people are easy to recognize. They share a common lack of identity, path, and/or aspirations. I’m not talking about “the late bloomer”. We all have that neighbor with a 26-year-old son who’s been trying to “find” himself since graduating college.

Unhappy people are unhappy because they aren’t trying to find themselves. They actually believe it when their mammal brains, the brain we’re born with, tell them that they are meant and designed for unhappiness.

Some people are unhappy because of a bio-chemical imbalance. Somewhere down the line, they’ve compromised themselves, or they’ve entered a structure (relationship, contractual agreement, or professional position) that has forced them to live a life that’s contrary to their inner self. These people could potentially suffer from mild, chronic, or acute unhappiness. Chronic unhappiness potentially directs its host to a life of avoidance by means of addiction while acute unhappiness forces its host into a world of depression.

But, unhappiness is not hopelessness.

Action must be taken to help pinpoint the root of unhappiness in your life. Figuring it out is half the battle. Could it be that you’re still holding on to a past hurt? Failing at the life plan someone else has made for you? or listening to the negativity of your mammal brain? Believing that you can move from where you are to where you want to be is vital. With my help, I can help identify what’s preventing you from moving forward in your rich and meaningful life.

Experience–dependent neuroplasticity, the part of our brain that learns from our experiences, forms our personality when in the beta and gamma state. This means we can also reorganize, and, as a result, change our personalities. So long as what’s being changed is philosophically and truly embraced an entire person can be turned around. The goal is not to get you to be someone else, but to get you to your very unique self.

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When I consider the 40,000+ Americans who commit suicide every year I’m truly overwhelmed. I can’t help but to wonder what was and wasn’t said to these 40,000+ lives. I need to know why these these 40,000+ individuals couldn’t see what waited for them just beyond their despondency. I know it’s easy to judge what’s misunderstood. It’s even easier to bypass what isn’t exactly happening to you, but for those suffering from depression, bipolar disorder, past hurts, heartaches, embarrassment and anger, their feelings are very real.

In my 35 years of life coaching I have seen many clients who were, or are, suicidal. I know the look of defeat. I have seen suicidal clients attempt to disguise their symptoms. I have also seen people in total denial of the war waging within them. I’ve been told by many clients that there is an insidious guilt agitating them for not being happier, and a heavy shame for believing they deserve to be happy. I ask whether or not they were ever told that it’s okay to be sad. I tell them it’s fine if the world weighs too heavy on their hearts, it’s common to want to sleep the day away, and it’s acceptable to cry during moments where you need to be strong. There will be days or even weeks full of melancholy. It’s completely normal to have those moments, but you shouldn’t have to stay there long.

A key trigger that I’ve noticed in all suicidal individuals is hopelessness bigger than the size of Manhattan. This despair infiltrates their thinking, speaking, and all around living. In my experience, their hopelessness is a seed of rejection, failure, disappointment, or addiction that was fed by not speaking up, by not telling someone that this seed existed. Some clients have a white knuckle grip on secrets that would kill them if left unspoken. I want to tell you there is absolutely nothing you can say that will make me judge you. Trying to preserve what’s decaying is far worse than allowing it to rot. Sometimes the only way to put ourselves back together is to let ourselves fall apart. That’s when we begin to see where things really belong, and what never belonged at all.

There is power in speaking. Opening up about the things that are tormenting us keeps our demons at bay. It keeps them from spreading lies about who we are and what we’re worth. I’m familiar enough with my clients to identify when something they’re believing about themselves isn’t true. I help navigate them toward their personal truth, and wait patiently for them to see themselves as worthy of love, forgiveness, a second chance, grace, acceptance, kindness, and abundant life.

I got into this kind of work because I knew the quickest way to help people was to change how they think through Clinical Hypnosis. Today I want you to see yourself as worthy of living a complete life, because you are.

Addiction has the power to take root in your brain and branch out, affecting all aspects of your life (your relationships, your daily choices, your daily functions, your daily mood, and the list goes on). What I mean by this is, once you become addicted, or in other words, dependent on a substance, person, action, thing, etc., to gratify your needs, you are no longer in control of what is best for you. When you become dependent on a personal addiction, be it drugs, alcohol, sex, exercise, gambling, cosmetic surgery, food, etc., your brain is no longer able to freely exercise life’s most profound gift, the gift of free will.

In the case of drug addictions, drugs cause large amounts of dopamine (the happy hormone) to be released into your brain in areas that foster motivation, judgment, rational decision making, and self control. When such large amounts are released, your brain learns to adapt. Thus, as a result, the brain becomes less sensitive to the smaller amounts of dopamine that is naturally released when your are happy, rewarded, excited, etc. When this happens, all of life’s healthy releases of the dopamine are no longer enough to keep a person motivated.

I see clients all the time that blame themselves for where they are in the course of their life. There is no addiction that Clinical Hypnosis can’t cure. People have to understand that once a person is addicted, they can’t help but to feel that they are no longer in control of their actions. They repeatedly tell themselves that they need what they are addicted to in order to function. Your body functions the way your brain speaks to it. With Clinical Hypnosis, I work with clients to re-orient their way of thought. Call me at (212) 599-3195 to book an appointment (I offer a free 5-10 min consultation) and we’ll work through it.

The NYC dating pool hasn’t changed. It remains as difficult and merciless as ever. Everyone’s ambitious, sophisticated, and interestingly complex. Yet why are so many choice single men and women perplexed over how to begin a romantic relationship, let alone sustain one? What’s the hold up? Why does it appear impossible for desirable men and women to attain romantic fulfillment?

You’d think with the advent of social media and dating websites, we’d all be happily hunting or finding the people we can mesh with. This isn’t the case. Apparently, regardless of how immaculate our images are online or in-person, we still have to deal with the most critical element of successful dating: Confidence.

Let me reiterate that self-perception is a subjective frame of mind, not necessarily based on or reflective of objective reality. If you want to jumpstart your dating life, I suggest shedding all preconceived notions of selfhood that are keeping you back — drop them immediately — and get fixed on your goals. Sounds easy, but it’s hard to practice. That’s when I come in. Think about this: When you go out on a date, what are you looking to get out of it once it’s over? Another date? A one-, two-, or possibly three-night stand? A potential long-term relationship that might lead to marriage? You have to be clear, if only to yourself, about what you want. If what you want is a combination of different things, that’s a valid goal in itself.

To clarify, a social phobia is not equivalent to a ‘fear of rejection.’ Everyone has a ‘fear of rejection.’ Social phobias go a little further. They are manifest in the mental and physical withdrawal from groups of people, an inability to function or communicate with them; a kind of human interaction impeding emotional well-being, career development and self-actualization.

Clinical Hypnosis works for highly specific, relentless social phobias. Life Coaching involves dialogues between you and me that trains you how to engage in social interaction that gets you where you need to be. If anxiety, social phobia, depression or any other mental ailment is bringing you down in your love life, give me a call. You only live once — why do it alone? Start sharing your life with people who are right for you.